Wintry weather does little to cool San Antonio climate kickoff

Keynote speaker Katharine Hayhoe talks in front of an audience at Buena Vista Theater at UTSA's Downtown Campus on December 7, 2017

Keynote speaker Katharine Hayhoe talks in front of an audience at Buena Vista Theater at UTSA's Downtown Campus on December 7, 2017

Photo: Tom Reel /San Antonio Express-News

Photo: Tom Reel /San Antonio Express-News

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Keynote speaker Katharine Hayhoe talks in front of an audience at Buena Vista Theater at UTSA's Downtown Campus on December 7, 2017

Keynote speaker Katharine Hayhoe talks in front of an audience at Buena Vista Theater at UTSA's Downtown Campus on December 7, 2017

Photo: Tom Reel /San Antonio Express-News

Wintry weather does little to cool San Antonio climate kickoff

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Attendees of San Antonio’s first official event on responding to climate change came outside to find fat flakes of snow falling on downtown.

The snow served as a metaphor for weather extremes under a changing climate, something Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe calls “global weirding.” Only a few days ago, San Antonio recorded a high temperature of 83 degrees, according to weather data.

Of course, none of the speakers claimed global warming itself caused Thursday’s snow or even Monday’s warm weather. That’s not how climate works. In her talk, Hayhoe compared daily weather to trees and climate to a forest.

Faced with hurricanes, droughts, fires, hailstorms, tornadoes, floods and dust storms, Texas is on the front lines for the kind of extreme events scientists say are becoming more severe in a warmer world, said Hayhoe, featured speaker before a crowd of around 300 who packed the auditorium of the University of Texas at San Antonio’s downtown campus.

Attendees had come to hear how the city, UTSA and CPS Energy are preparing a plan to adapt to the effects of a warming climate and cut back on greenhouse gas emissions that cause warming. If successful, San Antonio will be the largest city in Texas to implement a so-called Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.

“You have this natural pattern of up and down and up and down, and it’s being stretched,” Hayhoe said of Texas’ extreme weather.

Over decades, the climate is getting hotter, she said, explaining that average annual temperatures in San Antonio since 1960 have increased 0.7 degrees per decade in the winter and 0.5 degrees per decade in the summer, leading to more warm and hot days overall and fewer cold spells. Droughts and floods are also getting more extreme and variable in San Antonio, she said.

To cope with these effects, UTSA faculty are drafting a climate response plan with guidance from the city’s Sustainability Department and support from CPS, which is providing $500,000 in funding.

“It affects every aspect of our lives from quality to our pocketbooks,” said Mayor Ron Nirenberg, whose first act as mayor was having the city sign an agreement to keep to the goals of the international Paris climate agreement.

Over the next year and a half, organizers of the climate plan say they will combine technical information like where San Antonio’s greenhouse gases come from with public outreach to understand what’s important to residents and how they believe the city should move forward.

UTSA associate professor Hazem Rashed-Ali, who is leading UTSA’s portion of the plan, said they want to find creative ways to “go where people are,” which could include neighborhood meetings and knocking on doors.

“It’s a messy process, don’t get me wrong,” said District 7 Councilwoman Ana Sandoval, who has experience working on climate and air quality issues. “It drags things out, but it makes the process stronger in the end.”

San Antonio resident Cristina Martinez said it surprised her to see the city moving forward on such a massive global issue and asking residents to get involved.

“One of the things they talked about was really getting the community involved when it comes to planning for the future,” she said. “As much as experts know about what to do … it should be up to the community how things are changed around in their environment.”

Graciela Sanchez, a longtime community organizer and director of Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, called it a “great beginning” but said the climate plan needs to include the elderly, poor, disabled and working people — those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

“As always, I’m concerned about who’s present and who’s not in the room,” she said. “The questions, the answers, the responses are limited.”

At the end of the meeting, an audience member asked Hayhoe what she likes most about her job as a climate scientist.

“It gives me hope,” she replied. “Hearing about all the amazing things happening in San Antonio — that’s going to keep me going for weeks.”